Most eye-opening upgrade and what you learned

There are innumerable, outrageously expensive tweaks and cables available to choose from. In my experience, none are the panacea that some would suggest. The first step is to experiment with placement of your speakers, as this simple adjustment can make an incredible impact on the sound. Make sure your speakers are on a solid footing, preferrably with spikes. Energy expended by the speaker drivers is wasted as distortion of the sound. Make sure your electronics are on a stable platform that is not subject to movement or excessive vibration. This doesn't mean that you have to spend thousands of dollars on a rack made of exotic materials and specialized isolation tweaks. As for power conditioning, having an electrician install a dedicated circuit (20 amp, 10 gauge romex with a hospital grade outlet) for your audio equipment for a few hundred dollars is better than any exotic power cord or line conditioner. Clean the contacts on your cables with Kontak or Radio Shack electronic contact cleaner. Use some decent, preferrably shielded interconnects and power cables, but don't go overboard, as an upgrade of your source component is money better spent. After you have sorted out the basic setup and you component preferences, spend your extra money on tweaks.

Anybody care to guess what my own personal audio
eye-opener/epiphany might have been?Hint-it wasn't cables, room treatments, speaker placement or tubes.

;0)

Best,
Ken

Hi Ken, I bet I know, and I must agree.

Ken: It wouldn't be losing weight and taking regular doses of Viagra would it? Seems that I read about your light and rigid approach somewhere.

I'll say it for Ken. I alternate between valves and SS, between cones and panels, thumping fat cables and weed whacker cord, software formats. But one thing never changes - Ken's Neuance shelves beat all-comers every time. I'm a demon tweaker, but if I ever put anything in place of the Neuances, they are back in seconds.